I realise this is a bit weird and abstract but I like it for a number of reasons. Firstly its abstract-iness is nice and secondly it very quietly and unassumingly illuminates my night time world. You don’t realise how dark dark is until you live somewhere with no night time light. We don’t have any streetlights and when there is no moon or stars it is pitch black at night. This odd little thing provides just enough light to see when I cross the landing to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s a simple thing – a bulb and a solar panel from a non-functioning garden light, a jam jar, a bit of foil and a few marbles….oh and a shell. I’m not entirely sure where that came from but it’s found its way into the jar with the rest. The jar sits on the shelf in the front porch and when we have a few milliseconds of sun, the battery charges up. It’s a very cool use of a load of old rubbish.
I’ve had my evening illuminated by a wonderful Radio 4 show tonight – the unbelievable truth. I learned some pretty mind-boggling things, including that camels wee sticky thick wee – something that I could have worked out from my biology course but it’s nice to have it confirmed! I also learned today in a lecture that nettles can be used to make clothing and this was confirmed tonight in the unbelievable truth when I discovered that in the First World War, the German soldiers wore uniforms made from nettles. What a strange coincidence, that I learned it was possible (never having heard it before) and then heard a real-life example of it happening in a real life situation later in the same day.
There is one of those awful “management speak” things that you hear being spouted by over-paid management consultants on a regular basis if you work in a commercial environment. It’s that hoary old chestnut “there are the things that you know, the things that you know you don’t know and the things that you’ve got no idea about at all”. I’ve managed to move a couple of things along into the box of things I know today and it’s a nice feeling.